One of the most memorable days over the past three years at the Disneyland construction site of the new Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge themed land involved a construction worker riding on a droid skateboard that left R2-D2 “footprints” in the freshly poured cement.

“I’ll set the scene for you,” Walt Disney Imagineering art director Kirstin Makela said. “We’re on a construction site. There’s lots of people around. There’s some people pouring concrete. They’re all dirty. They’re getting all their tools and they’re stamping. Then all of a sudden one of them just jumps on this little trolley and someone else pulls them through the concrete and they leave little droid tracks.”

The man-made droid tracks will be easy enough to find in the Black Spire Outpost village on the Star Wars planet of Batuu, the setting for the new 14-acre themed land coming to the Anaheim theme park.

Disney guests visiting Star Wars: Galaxys Edge will be able to stop by the Droid Depot to build their own R-series or BB-series droids that will act as a friend throughout the village of Black Spire Outpost. (Photo by David Roark, Disney Parks)

Just look for the Droid Depot shop near the Frontierland entrance to Galaxy’s Edge. There will be a bunch of audio-animatronic astromechs lined up in front of the build-your-own droid workshop.

“It’s kind of reminiscent of the droids in ‘Episode IV’ outside the sandcrawler that were for sale,” Imagineering executive creative director Chris Beatty. “These will look like droids that are for sale. You can come up and get your picture with them.”

If you look down, you’ll spot the distinctive droid tracks right away. Follow them around the corner into an intimate courtyard covered by a sail-like canopy. The droid “footprints” will take you to a little animated scene behind the workshop where a red R5 and a yellow R2 are undergoing some maintenance.

“It’s just going to be stacked with droid pieces and parts,” Beatty said. “There are two animated droids back there. They will be getting an oil bath. They’re getting a little bit of refurbishment.”

Inside the shop, droid fans can build their own R- or BB-unit while surrounded by props and animated show elements lining the walls and hanging from the ceiling.

A young boy waves to the Jake droid at Disneyland. As a possible precursor to Star Wars Land: Galaxy’s Edge, Disney is testing how the droid interacts with park visitors. (Photo by Joseph Pimentel, Orange County Register)

Imagineering plans to have remote-controlled droids roaming the streets of Black Spire Outpost. Disneyland has tested a free-roaming droid named J4KE — or Jake — that interacted with theme park visitors.

Imagineering worked closely with Lucasfilm on the development and creation of the many different droids that populate Galaxy’s Edge.

“We built all the droids from the Star Wars films.” said Eric Baker, Imagineering creative director for props and set dressing. “We were fortunate enough to borrow the actual molds from Lucasfilm that were used in the films.”

Imagineers took rubbings from the wheels of the 1977-era R2-D2 to create the set of three droid wheels used to create the droid “footprints” in Galaxy’s Edge.

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The droid trolley used during construction consisted of a triangular piece of plywood with three ridged R2 wheels mounted on the bottom in a tricycle formation. A rope was attached to one corner of the construction trolley.

The droid tracks running through the land help enrich the backstory of Black Spire Outpost and create a history for the ancient Star Wars spaceport, Beatty said.

“It’s all about the story,” Beatty said. “And when you build a story it gives the place life.”

Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge debuts on May 31 at Disneyland and Aug. 29 at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida.

Brady MacDonald is a theme park reporter for the Orange County Register and the Southern California News Group. He’s covered the theme park industry for more than 25 years. He writes about Disney, Universal, Six Flags, SeaWorld, Cedar Fair and Legoland parks in Southern California, across the United States and around the world. As a member of the SCNG Features team, he also writes about entertainment, travel, pop culture, music, restaurants and craft beer.

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